


Not Without You

by Wind_Ryder



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Healing, M/M, PTSD, Trouble Sleeping, reclamation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-17
Updated: 2015-12-17
Packaged: 2018-05-07 05:11:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5444492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wind_Ryder/pseuds/Wind_Ryder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve lets Bucky’s arm out from the vice. Sam’s standing back, wary and uncertain. That’s fine. It makes sense. Neither know if this is an act, or if Bucky legitimately wants to be with them. Steve lets Bucky out, and he crouches down before him. He puts himself in front of Bucky. Ready to fight if need be.</p><p>He needn’t have bothered.</p><p>Bucky pulls his arm close to his chest. Ducks his head down. Some of the tension in his shoulders relaxes. His hair falls over his face. He breaths in slowly. He lets it out slowly. He rubs at the metal like he’s rubbing the circulation back into a real arm. Steve wonders how much he can feel.</p><p>Steve reaches out. He places his hand on Bucky’s knee, and Bucky flinches. Flinches and turns his head. Steve can just see his lips pressed tight. His teeth grinding down. “Okay,” Steve tells him. “It’s okay.”</p><p>There isn’t time for anything else.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Without You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kh530](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kh530/gifts).



> A gift for KH530 upon her request: "Anything Stucky Civil War related"

Steve lets Bucky’s arm out from the vice. Sam’s standing back, wary and uncertain. That’s fine. It makes sense. Neither know if this is an act, or if Bucky legitimately wants to be with them. Steve lets Bucky out, and he crouches down before him. He puts himself in front of Bucky. Ready to fight if need be.

He needn’t have bothered.

Bucky pulls his arm close to his chest. Ducks his head down. Some of the tension in his shoulders relaxes. His hair falls over his face. He breaths in slowly. He lets it out slowly. He rubs at the metal like he’s rubbing the circulation back into a real arm. Steve wonders how much he can feel.

Steve reaches out. He places his hand on Bucky’s knee, and Bucky flinches. Flinches and turns his head. Steve can just see his lips pressed tight. His teeth grinding down. “Okay,” Steve tells him. “It’s okay.”

There isn’t time for anything else.

The soldiers come, and all three of them need to move. Have to escape. Someone bursts through the door just as Steve and Bucky move to exit. Steve pushes the rifle up into the air. Bucky kicks the man away.

They run and run and run.

Bucky leaps from the building. Steve follows only moments afterwards. The distance isn’t ideal, but they make it to the building just across the street. Propelled by momentum that mystified them both seventy years ago.

_(“Go on! Get out of here!”_

_“No! Not without you!”)_

Bucky gets ahead of Steve. He races as fast as he can. T’Challa tries to cut him off, but Bucky’s fast. He’s capable. He’s able to evade them. He gets on a bike and he drives. He doesn’t look back. Steve catches up with him later. It’s easy to do when he knows where Bucky’s going.

It doesn’t change the terror he felt as he waited to look at Bucky again. Doesn’t change the fact that being parted from im, even slightly, is enough to send fear and confusion spiraling through his body.

But Bucky’s at the safehouse. Just like he’s supposed to. Steve’s hands go to touch him again, but he lets them fall back to his side. He trembles. He doesn’t know what he should do. Bucky looks between his face and his hands.

He steps towards Steve. He tilts his head down. Like a supplication. His brow touches Steve’s clavicle. Steve’s hands shift awkwardly at his sides. Eventually, Steve goes for it. He lifts his hands. He touches Bucky’s arms first. Then he wraps them around Bucky’s back.

Bucky sags into Steve’s body. They stand there, awkwardly embracing, and Steve hugs him tight.

This is familiar. Gentle. Good.

They can make this work.

Somehow, they’ll figure this out.

* * *

Bucky doesn’t sleep. Steve notices that the third night in. Bucky makes a show of it. He goes and he lays down right where Steve had cleared him a spot. He tucks his head to his chest and his knees to his chin. He curls up, and he makes a show of sleeping. But he doesn’t actually sleep. Steve watches him like a hawk, keeps every sense turned inwards.

Steve listens to Bucky breathe. He listens to his heart. He listens to each minute movement. And Bucky listens back. They spend the evening listening to each other. Listening to the sounds around them.

By day four, dark circles curve under Bucky’s eyes. His posture starts to slacken. His limited communication comes to an abrupt halt. Enough’s enough.

Steve tells Sam to keep watch. He asks Clint and Wanda to keep guard. He ensures their safe-house is protected on all sides. Then, he walks to Bucky. “Come with me,” he orders firmly. Bucky snaps to.

Sam warns him Bucky might not be the same person. That Bucky might never act or react the way Steve’s friend did in the 40s. Well. Steve doesn’t blush at the sight of knee-skirts or lady’s underwear. He doesn’t squirm around innuendos. He doesn’t respect his President. If Bucky expects Steve to be the same, he’ll be sadly mistaken too.

Steve doesn’t want Bucky of the 1940s. Steve wants this man. Whoever he is. However he is. Steve wants.

Bucky of the 21st century responds to orders. He likes easy commands and simple sentences. He likes clarity and honesty. He likes silence and warmth.

The similarities to who he was before struck Steve as sweet remembrances. Nothing more, nothing less.

Steve likes the brutal honesty of Bucky Barnes.

Everything else feels natural.

Steve leads Bucky to Bucky’s room. They step inside, and Bucky closes the door behind them. His instincts never falter. Bucky knows Steve wants privacy. So he provides it. “You need to sleep.”

For a moment, Steve could have sworn Bucky’s going to lie to him. He doesn’t. Instead, he nods. “Yes.” Bucky’s eyes flick towards the bed.

They are lucky this time around. Stark hadn’t routed out this safe house yet, and they’d managed to find a place with actual bedding. The time before that, it’d been a haphazard mismatch on the couch. Everyone scrambling as best they could to catch a few winks wherever it seemed most comfortable. This house surpassed the last in every way.

Bucky’s eyes peel downwards at the corner. Exhaustion wrap around his features. His nose flares, then settles. His lips pulse.

The answer comes instantly. “You can’t sleep,” Steve posits. His friend’s head turns left. Then right. No. “What can I do to help?”

“I only slept in ice.”

Bucky told Steve stories sometimes. Quiet, one sentence, lines. Each one a novel in of its own. Each line wrapping around Steve’s head until he felt anger and sorrow in turns. Bucky spoke the words as if he were just realizing the truth himself. As if he suddenly had cause to be horrified by the summary he himself provided to the world.

Now, Bucky’s eyes are bleak and stressed. His fingers take to pulling at a loose thread on his sleeve. He fidgets more than Steve thought he would. A valiant victory against the perfect soldier Hydra created. The Winter Soldier had been rock steady and ferocious in his design. Each move precise and specific.

Bucky Barnes fiddles with his strings. He struggles with eye contact. He admits to horror and torture, while sounding uncertain and bereft.

Steve nods slowly. He steps backwards. Turns on his heel. Walks to the bed. He hesitates by the corner. “Did…it help?”

Bucky Barnes of yesteryear could read Steve’s mind. He could hear the real question behind every word Steve spoke.

This amalgamation of past and present is no different. He nods. “When I slept, I didn’t hurt. It was…safe. ” Safe, because no one could touch him in the pod. They couldn’t send him after anyone. They could only wake him up. Wake him, after decades past and they remembered him. Steve doesn’t doubt that Bucky longed for the great expanse of time.

Cruel men died while Bucky slept. New beginnings started. “But…” Steve waited. Bucky lifted his gaze. “Time slips away when I sleep.”

Cruel men died while Bucky slept. But. So did good men. So did fond memories. So did friends.

Steve resolutely avoids any thoughts about Bucky’s fall. He forces  any trailing lingering curiosity out of his mind. He doesn’t need to think about Bucky hitting the ground. Doesn’t need to think about Bucky waking up to discover his arm was gone, his friends left him, and Steve was…dead.

Steve looks toward the bed. “Sleep with me?” he asks. He flushes dark.

Bucky doesn’t trust many people in this world. He’s been shy around the others. He defaults to Steve, always. And Steve loves him for it. Loves that he can still be that core — that center. Steve’s so grateful that Bucky does it now too.

That Bucky nods his head, and like that first night they came together — steps forward. Bucky walks to Steve. He rests his head against Steve’s chest. Steve wraps his arms around him, and shuffles them toward the bed.

They lay down, wrapped in each other’s arms.

“I don’t want to wake up and know you’re gone,” Bucky tells Steve softly.

“Hold onto me,” Steve requests. “Just hold on. I’m not going anywhere. Not without you.”

“Not without you.”

They echo a moment in time long since past. They fall asleep.

They dream of a tomorrow where there are no explosions in the distance. Just each other, stretching infinitely outward. Forever.


End file.
